CT Post and Voting Groups Conduct Their Own Recount of Bridgeport

The recount comes one week after Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz certified the results of all races on Election Day including the gubernatorial contest which was held up due to widespread voting problems in Bridgeport.  City officials had refused a request by Bysiewicz to voluntarily recount ballots from voting precincts where ballots were photocopied after running out of them on November 2. The city said a recount was unnecessary and costly to do.  But the city is cooperating with recount efforts by the Connecticut Post and the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition. 

 

Coalition Executive Director, Luther Weeks says about 35 volunteers from member organizations including the League of Women Voters and CT Common Cause will take turns counting the results in teams of five.

 

"Four people will do the counting and the fifth person will manage the ballots and oversee the process.  One person will read the votes on the ballot, another person watching them. And two people making hash marks for the ballots. We'll use piles of fifty. And if they don't balance between the two people making hash marks we'll just do it again until we get it right."

 

Unlike city poll workers who were up all hours in the days following the election to handcount ballots, Weeks says his volunteers will conduct the recount during regular business hours and won't be sleep deprived. They're expected to complete their count by Friday.

 

Weeks says the recount should help allay concerns city residents had about the voting process after its registrars ordered less than half the necessary ballots for the city's 90,000 registered voters.

 

"And to answer what the accurate vote count was and see how closely that tracks with the reported vote count because that's the question a lot of people are asking and they deserve an answer."

 

Weeks says he's not anticipating numbers that would change the result of the Governor's race.  Democrat Dan Malloy won with 17, 973 of the city's votes compared to Republican Tom Foley's 4,099.

 

Depending on what the recount finds, Weeks stresses it will be up to concerned parties to figure out remedies to make sure discrepancies on Election Day 2010 do not happen again.